Of Strawberry Tea and Midnight Talks
by Cheshire-the-Assassin
Summary: Rose is awake one stormy night after winning the game. While sipping her strawberry tea and reminiscing about the past, she is confronted by her young daughter. A cute one-shot about Rose and Roxy's mother-daughter relationship.


**Of Strawberry Tea and Midnight Talks**

Loud, rumbling thunder sounded only seconds after a bright flash of lightning illuminated the night sky. The loud crashing of raindrops pelting against the window, along with the trees hitting noisily against the thin glass windowpane kept Rose Lalonde awake.

She had been awake for the last three hours, since the storm had started. She was restless; her insomnia was getting the best of her more often these days. She gave a disgruntled sigh as she relinquished any hope of going to sleep. Rising from her bed, she tossed a robe over her sleepwear and exited her room.

She padded downstairs to the kitchen located on the first floor of the house. The linoleum tiles were like ice against her bare feet. The lights all over the house were out; making it impossible to see more than three feet in front of you, but that was no hindrance to Rose. She grew up in that house, and knew it as she did the palm of her hand. She did not need to see to make her way around it.

The lights in the kitchen flickered on immediately after Rose flipped the switch. After a few seconds of letting her eyes adjust to the sudden change in brightness, Rose walked into the kitchen. She headed immediately for the refrigerator where her daughter and she were in a one-upping competition. At this point, she was waiting to see what Roxy, her ectobiological mother (now daughter), would do. Perhaps a poem? Or maybe a letter?

Smiling fondly, Rose opened the door to the refrigerator and grabbed the cup of leftover strawberry tea she had made the day before. Dropping two ice cubes into the dark red liquid, she cradled the cup between her thin hands and leaned against the island in the middle of the room. She briefly contemplated the thought of grabbing a cigarette from the drawer to her right but quickly dismissed the thought. She wanted to relax, and nicotine was not going to help her achieve _that_ goal.

Thoughts, memories and nightmares drifted into her mind. And suddenly she was imagining a different life: a life where she grew up as a normal girl. A life where she was not forced to go into a bloody game, to risk her life and the lives of her closest friends to determine whether her planet was worthy to continue its life. She imagined how it would have been if she was able to grow up like a regular person, without the worries of death and danger around every corner. She would have been able to go into psychology, as she had wanted when she was younger. She would have lived a regular life. Perhaps she could have been happy. The very though made an uncontrollable pain shoot through her chest as she thought of all the friends she had made in that game. Only to watch all of them die off like nothing, like pawns taken away in a simple, yet twisted game of chess.

Small footsteps drove her from her musings. Rose looked up from her cup of tea, the strawberry-flavoured liquid swirling around in the glass, the ice cubes now partly melted. Standing at the doorway to the kitchen was her seven-year-old daughter looking carefully at her. Her young daughter, her darling Roxy.

"Is something the matter, Roxy?"

"No. I just felt that you were awake. Wanted to see if I was right."

Silence surrounded them. Both their voices were cold, seemingly uninterested. The air around them, however, was warm and comfortable, loving even. It gave the impression of a mother and daughter talking about their day over dinner, not a conversation happening in the middle of the night with a storm raging just outside the marble walls of the house.

A sigh, "You should be in bed by now, Roxy"

"As should you," pink eyes narrowed slightly.

A barely there smirk tugging at pale lips, "But, I am not the one with work in the early morning tomorrow, now am I?"

"You have work, though," a small, triumphant smile of her won lifted her lips.

The smirk grew a bit more noticeable, "That I do. However, I am used to not sleeping at night, you are not."

"And what sort of example are you setting for your daughter with that? Not a very good one. Do you want me to become an insomniac like you?" her chin tilted up in a gesture of superiority as her thin arms came up to cross themselves across her tiny torso.

"That is true," an airy laugh escaped upturned lips and a delicate eyebrow rose in loving amusement. "Now, let us go back to bed. The both of us, shall we, Roxy?"

Wide, light pink eyes shone with childlike happiness and triumph, "Sure!"

**So . . . this is a small one-shot that I wrote in my English class. I am hoping it is not oh-so terrible. Reviews and critiques are welcomed and wanted. And I hope that the one-shot was to the pleasure of those who read it. Good day, loves!**

**~Cheshire-the-Assassin**


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